The defense was again suspect last night, especially giving up a terrible breakaway right as Rocky finished announcing RIT's goal.

That was bad, but the other two regulation goals were weird inadvertent deflections, and the winning breakaway only happened because Brubaker didn't realize his stick was broken.

Powers &8^]

Tom Naeger

03-04-2018, 08:22 PM

Some quick thoughts on the 3 game series this weekend.

I think RIT had more talent and it carried them at times, but Sacred Heart made it up with hustle. Hustle beats talent.
RIT was a step slow on transitions all weekend. It was like it took them an extra second or two to process what happen when the puck was turned over at the blue line. Each time it allowed Sacred Heart to attack them with odd man rushes.

Defense lapse for RIT was stunning all weekend. We had guys taking Sunday skates or watching and point to the open guy instead of helping.
For the life of me I do not understand the decision to shorten the bench in OT for Game 2. Brown was double shifted into the ground and was dead in the second OT. The third line got themselves in trouble more than once. And I just do not get why the last place team in the league can roll 4 lines and you cannot? Was Sacred Heart that much deeper?? Only thing I can figure was it was decide that if you lose a game you had the lead going into the last minute of the third then you had no chance to win the series. And the way they played in Game 3 there does appear to be some wisdom in that…

Final thoughts for the season.

This team has earn the stigma that comes with losing to the last place team in the playoffs two years in a row. There inconsistent play all season earned that for them.

My final Grades for the Year…

Forwards, A-, like the rest of their team lapses at time, but the rate they put the puck in the net was impressive. Brown deserves serious consideration for AHA Player of the year.

Defensemen, D, for Disappointing. Soft all year, lots of sophomore slumps and upper classmen made too many outrageous mistakes this season. This was supposed to be the strongest unit on the team and it turned out to be arguable the biggest liability.

Goaltending, C-, hard to really grade with how poor the Defense was at times. But certainly too many soft goals. As I harped on all season a better plan is needed to manage and evaluate goaltenders

Freshman Class, B+. Yet another class with a couple nice Gems in it. They need to grow now, something that hasn’t been going well for the Tigers last two seasons.

Coaching, I am not going to offer a grade, but as much as I think the team has earned a stigma and a chip on the shoulder. I think the coaching staff does as well and struggled this season. Goaltending situation is what it is, I’ve made my suggestions and will just move on. I do think they more or less held together a very fragile room this season and did prevent a complete disaster from happening. Yet still struggle to get this team filled with talent to play inspired, smart, hardworking hockey on a consistent base. Very frustrating and I think there was even some small moments of the frustration boiling over this season. Will say that I am glad I am not an NCAA Hockey coach.

I would post the team's save percentage on the whiteboard with a note that this has to change. A Message for the entire team!

Well thanks everyone for putting up with me for another season...

Downstate_RIT_Fan

03-04-2018, 08:24 PM

A loss and we'll have been drummed out by the last place team two straight seasons..

Yup....how quick the mighty have fallen.... waiting to hear the radio guys interview coach...also have to give a hat tip to the Sacred Heart goalie.

LtPowers

03-04-2018, 08:31 PM

Yup....how quick the mighty have fallen....

Our home ice advantage is gone. Absolutely kaput. No team has ever had reason to fear playing at the Polisseni Center, not since day one. We gained some wonderful amenities but in exchange we lost nearly everything that made the Ritter a fearsome place to play.

Losing the series after winning Game 1 in dramatic fashion is inexcusable, though I do cut them some slack for Game 2 because of the way SHU's goals came. But the team is soft, with no grit, no passion, no resiliency -- even though they look like they're playing hard and never give up no matter the game situation. It's enigmatic; it'd be no wonder if the coaches can't figure them out either.

Powers &8^]

RIT Winters

03-04-2018, 08:32 PM

Yup....how quick the mighty have fallen.... waiting to hear the radio guys interview coach...also have to give a hat tip to the Sacred Heart goalie.

Hard to believe this graduating class won 2 straight AHC titles...from best to worst in one class.

blazer777

03-04-2018, 08:41 PM

Yup....how quick the mighty have fallen.... waiting to hear the radio guys interview coach...also have to give a hat tip to the Sacred Heart goalie.

Wilson pretty much said it all.

Schmitty

03-04-2018, 09:38 PM

Only four more years

RIT Winters

03-05-2018, 07:44 AM

Wilson pretty much said it all.

I'm concerned that there is a little bit too much using injuries as a scapegoat for consistency and performance issues. If his big takeaway is "Well we were down 1.5 Norrish's most of the season" then that is hardly a blueprint for future success. The Norrish twins are gone now, along with Abt who was probably the 3rd best D behind them. Hopefully the freshman D are really good because it's hard to have faith in the current returning group of D.

In net, I guess we have to hope that getting a combined 28 games in as freshmen will help Drackett and/or Andriano take their game to the next level as sophmores. If not it's going to be a long season...again.

LtPowers

03-05-2018, 07:55 AM

Only four more years

Until...?

Powers &8^]

Scott Biggar

03-05-2018, 08:16 AM

Our home ice advantage is gone. Absolutely kaput. No team has ever had reason to fear playing at the Polisseni Center, not since day one. We gained some wonderful amenities but in exchange we lost nearly everything that made the Ritter a fearsome place to play.

Home ice advantage, or lack there of, is a bit more nuanced that what you have implied. It actually started to fade the last two seasons at Ritter Arena, got better for one year at GPC, and then has been consistently poor the last three seasons:

MY biggest takeaway from looking at the stats is that the team rating based on collegehockeystats.net was -11 in spite of the fact that RIT outshot opponents by 137. Combine that with a -2 goal differential between power play goals scored and power play goals allowed, and this looks bad.

Forwards - I go B+ on this. The Brown/Valenzuela/Girduckis line had 47 goals and all 3 are back. This should be one of the most potent lines in AHC next year. However, they were also a combined -28. I know they weren't always on the same line, but that can't happen for RIT to get back to the next level.

Defensemen - D is the right call here. So many mistakes and to me, outside of Brubacker and Abt, very little offensive production. It seemed to me that they didn't want to shoot at times. I expect that Brubacker/McKay will be the top pair for better or worse.

Goaltending - D. While the defense was rough in front of them, You can't have your best save percentage on the team be .883 with the way the game is played today. There is considerable room for improvement, especially for Drackett and Andriano being freshmen. That being said, it's probably hard to play this position when you feel like one bad game costs you your starting position.

Freshmen - B. There are some good players, but there is clearly room for improvement and they need to develop. I would rate Dupois the best of the freshmen. He got time with the top lines and was solid on offence and defense. The goaltending should get better.

Coaching - C. I'm putting a grade out there. I get that injuries are part of it. But if there was a plan for the goaltending it went out the window early and to me, no hierarchy seems to hurt. The penalty kill was a mess all season. But to me, what sets it off is the tailspin that the team had in the second half and the fact that the team went 4-7 against the bottom 4 teams in the conference.

Schmitty

03-05-2018, 09:12 AM

Until...?

Powers &8^]

Someone’s contract doesn’t get renewed and he goes to fail elsewhere.

RIT Winters

03-05-2018, 10:08 AM

Someone’s contract doesn’t get renewed and he goes to fail elsewhere.

I'm not sure I buy it. The school isn't pretending it is a hockey powerhouse and Munson's focus thus far has been on increasing the success of the D3 programs. I doubt at that level there is much concern about the state of the program. I think Wayne has the leash to stay here until he's ready to go elseware...and best believe if he hit the open market he would be highly coveted. He has an impressive resume.

That said, I would not hate a change of pace....as long as we don't promote from within RIT. I would be mortified of the women's coach failing up.

komey1

03-05-2018, 10:18 AM

Someone’s contract doesn’t get renewed and he goes to fail elsewhere.

And yet only 2 years ago, we were enjoying a 2nd straight NCAA tournament appearance.

Coach Wilson has earned a long leash based on what he has done. Honestly, RIT is lucky they have had him as long as they did. I know quite a few of us were concerned he would be poached after the Frozen Four run. I would not be surprised if some schools had interest.

Now if there are no tournament or conference regular season championships in the next four years, then we can talk.

LtPowers

03-05-2018, 10:34 AM

Home ice advantage, or lack there of, is a bit more nuanced that what you have implied.

You think my description lacked nuance, but you're the one who boils "home ice advantage" down to a simple comparison of records.

I meant much more by my statement than a simple description of the trend in home record, though that does factor into it, of course.

Powers &8^]

TigerFan86-87

03-05-2018, 11:29 AM

You think my description lacked nuance, but you're the one who boils "home ice advantage" down to a simple comparison of records.

I meant much more by my statement than a simple description of the trend in home record, though that does factor into it, of course.

Powers &8^]

Comparing the home vs. road records within each season makes more sense.
Just as examples:
That 11-12 team was much better than many that have come since then, so of course their home record would be better. Their road record (too lazy to look it up) probably wasn't all that bad either.
This year's team was not stellar on the road, but still much better than they were at home. In this calendar year, they are 2-9 at home and 4-3-1 on the road.
Now that is a serious lack of "home ice advantage", whatever that entails.

That's 3-7-1.
The only reason that the record against all teams below RIT in the standings (7-7-1) doesn't look as bad compared to the record against the teams above them (7-9) is the 4 game sweep against Robert Morris.

TigerFan86-87

03-05-2018, 11:45 AM

Did anyone else notice that during the pregame, the video board had the Tiger head and the SHU logos up with the scroll behind it reading Rochester Institute of Technology vs Ryerson University?

Is Ryerson, by some chance, the Tigers' Canadian exhibition and first game next season? That's the only thing I could think of as to how that got on there.

mar7967

03-05-2018, 02:50 PM

Did anyone else notice that during the pregame, the video board had the Tiger head and the SHU logos up with the scroll behind it reading Rochester Institute of Technology vs Ryerson University?

Is Ryerson, by some chance, the Tigers' Canadian exhibition and first game next season? That's the only thing I could think of as to how that got on there.

The women's team played Ryerson for their exhibition this year. could have been just been a mistake.